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Catholics remain split on condom issue

ROME - Legend has it that rubbish collectors in Rome made a
startling discovery at the end of World Youth Day 2000.

Hundreds of thousands of young Catholics had flocked to the
Italian capital to attend celebrations culminating in a Mass
presided over by Pope John Paul II.

When it was all over, the collectors sifted through debris left
behind on a field transformed by participants into a gigantic
campsite during the week-long duration of the religious fest.

Their find: thousands of used condoms.

Critics of the Vatican's doctrinal stance against birth control
and extra-marital sex - which holds that it is a sin to use a
condom - held up the discovery in triumph.

It amounted to proof, the critics said, that many young
Catholics were dispensing with those aspects of their faith they
considered reactionary, just as easily as they were rolling on
condoms.

Officials of the Diocese of Rome, whose bishop is the pope,
angrily dismissed the reports.

They described them as an "urban myth" and accused television
media of "fabricating evidence" when images purportedly backing up
the reports were broadcast.

Aspects of the controversy linger on in Italy.

Emma Bonino, a former cabinet minister and leader of the ultra-
secular Radical Party, has repeatedly referred to it when
campaigning - so far unsuccessfully - that recognition be granted
in terms of Italian law to same-sex and unmarried couples.

Catholic politicians who oppose such legislation, on the grounds
that it would run counter to the country's "religious heritage,"
are guilty of hypocrisy as much as those who choose to ignore the
condoms "carpeting" the Tor Vergata field, Bonino says.

Yet the contradiction highlighted by Bonino and others is
perhaps not entirely surprising in Italy, where over 90 per cent of
the population describes itself as Roman Catholic.

Nudity dominated Renaissance art at a time when a large swathe
of the country was ruled directly by popes who were also
responsible for commissioning many of the paintings and sculptures.
Today, skimpily dressed showgirls routinely appear on TV political
talk shows together with Christian Democrat politicians.

It seems that Roman Catholicism can, in its heartland, co-exist
with overt sexuality, at least on a surface level.

More to do with substance is the fact that Italians have one of
the lowest-birth rates in the world, indicating that for the
majority, sex is an act separated from the strict
procreation-within-marriage purposes as defined by the Vatican.

This is despite the fact that Pope Paul VI had, through a 1968
encyclical, branded contraception as a grave sin, a position
reiterated by Pope John Paul II.

Still, modern developments such as AIDS have posed new
challenges to the Church's ban on condoms, especially in cases
where HIV infection threatens people who would otherwise be
following the Vatican's directives on keeping sex within the
context of marriage.

An example frequently cited is when one spouse, infected with
HIV through a blood transfusion, runs the risk of passing on the
disease to the other through unprotected sex.

John Paul remained unswayed, seemingly applying to such couples
the same restrictions prescribed by the Vatican to sex outside
marriage that of total abstinence.

Surprisingly, given his conservative reputation, Pope Benedict
XVI commissioned a study on the use of condoms to combat AIDS early
in 2006, raising the hopes of many, including health agencies
operating in badly affected areas in Africa, that the Catholic ban
would be lifted.

Two years on, there is little sign this is about to happen.

It is a situation which has prompted activists to protest by
organising the free distribution of condoms to participants of the
2008 edition of World Youth Day running from 15-20 July in
Sydney.

Even more sacrilegious, for some Catholic observers, is the
decision of some Sydney brothels which have reportedly recruited
extra staff in anticipation of brisk business during the event.

Benedict has referred to AIDS in recent meetings with African
ambassadors to the Holy See, but has not dropped any hints on a
change in doctrine on condoms.

He told them that "the Church would continue to assist those who
suffer from AIDS and to support their families."

But the pontiff also said that while medicine and education have
a part in combating he disease, "promiscuous sexual conduct is a
root cause of many moral and physical ills and must be overcome by
promoting a culture of marital faithfulness and moral
integrity."